The question asked was “What will be hot in L&D in 2016?” and respondents were asked to vote for what they thought would be hot, rather than should be hot. No definitions were provided for the choices given, nor for what ‘being hot’ meant.

Caveats – this population was not pre-qualified (so we don’t know it was L&D only) and was voluntary and so self-selecting. It is, therefore, likely a skewed population: more tech-focused, more social than others in the profession. For all that, over 3 years I have noticed that this population does tend to predict what will become strong in corporate L&D eventually (if not in the current year) and also, what will fall from being ‘hot’ to either being part of business as usual (eg video) or irrelevant.

Collaborative learning remains strong – it was #3 in 2014, #1 in 2015 and remains at the top of the leader board. It also features in the top 3 of just about every geography.

Micro learning is strong, but US-focused – a new entry at #5, Micro learning’s popularity is largely founded in North America. Elsewhere it’s still a new term.

Mobile maintains, video drops – mobile remains on people’s minds (although dropping from #1 to #3 to #4 this year), but video’s drop has been precipitous – from #5 in 2013 to #13 this year. This seems to signal that mobile remains a challenge while video is now seen as ‘business as usual’

Global variations are strong – there are clear differences across different territories. The UK and North America differ from each other, as they do from Europe and Australia/NZ. More about this on the 20th.

MOOCs are …. what, exactly? With a slight variation in wording, MOOCs have been in the survey since 2014, but have fallen from #4 to #14. Why? Three possible reasons:
a. They are now seen as ‘business as usual’ (not my observation)
b. L&D knows about them, but refuses to use them
c. L&D knows about them, but can’t find a use for them – yet

What do you think? Do these results match your observations of L&D? Is there anything missing? Feel free to comment ….